Atheists turning to cult behaviour?

[FatAndFaithless]

Seems like there's a combination of your cultural pre-existing ideas and norms and normal human fallibility and assholery affecting the behavior of people that only agree on a specific stance on one question.

Who knew.

[Alex K]

Errrr what? Am I dreaming? Are you winding me up....? What in the holy fuck's going on!?

Dawkins really wrote that?

Yeah, he tends to behave a bit like a pompous privileged ass at times lately... He more or less took it back again with 2 years delay recently.

[SoFarEast]

If you are for real FSE and we've had a lot of misunderstandings due to language barrier, then I apologize. I did try really hard to understand, and to try and see what help would be possible.

Well, thank you for taking the effort to understand. I am quite unfamiliar with the discourse abroad and rely heavily on youtube and comment sections of blogs to understand a 'trend'. What I thought was a social problem here is also fairly commonplace elsewhere.

Alex has pointed me out to people dealing with it, all of whom I was unaware of.

[robvalue]

Blimey, I should bloody well think so. How could he write that?

I mean, he's just a guy. But I thought he had more sense than that.

---

I honestly had no idea about any of this, which is why I thought you were winding me up. I'm dumbstruck.

I hope people are taking it seriously, and I don't know what I can do to help, but if anyone has ideas then I'm happy to try.

I feel like I must be dreaming. I thought people had moved on from this kind of behaviour.

[FatAndFaithless]

and rely heavily on youtube and comment sections of blogs to understand a 'trend'.

Ouch..no no no, that's like asking toddlers at a daycare to hear the public's opinion on political issues.

Moderated forums are far better places for discussion.

[robvalue]

Sorry I thought you were not for real. We get so many people arsing around on here pretending to be atheists and such that they make it hard to know when people are being serious.

Geez, I can't believe I never heard about this.

Holy crap no, don't read youtube comments! They are the worst kind of filth, you'll get little to no intelligence there, just vile hatred. Forums are far better. If you've been basing your experience on youtube comments, I can understand what you mean. They are unbearably infantile.

[Alex K]

and rely heavily on youtube and comment sections of blogs to understand a 'trend'.

Ouch..no no no, that's like asking toddlers at a daycare to hear the public's opinion on political issues.

Moderated forums are far better places for discussion.

Lol, youtube comments. Why not go straight to /b/

[Mister Agenda]

While that's technically correct, reality is not like that - there is such a thing as the atheist community offline and online which is comprised of activists, writers and speakers, they do conferences together, there are official orgs, have blogs, networks. At the same time, the public perceives atheists as a group with leading proponents which are almost household names. Again, technically, pure atheism may have no other consequences, but that's not a useful insight here imho

It's probably worth noting here that although many atheists in America are involved in organized activites of special interest to secularists and people interested in the company of folks unlikely to treat them like they have three eyes if they know you don't believe in God; the vast majority of atheists in America are not involved in such activities. There are several million atheists in the USA. American Atheists and the FFRF however, have less than 24,000 members between them. Add in all the Facebook and Meetup groups and Sunday Assemblies, and if you account for multiple memberships, I expect it's much less than ten times the membership of AA and FFRF. The American Humanist Association, whom the OP would place in the 'not acting like organized religion category', on the other hand, is probably upwards of 35,000 members all by itself.

[Alex K]

@Mister Agenda

Yes, that sound right.

[robvalue]

I guess it's a case of empty vessels make the most noise, and like has been said, humanists are not out there spamming hate. So I can see how it could come across as a skewed proportion.

I feel like a dick now. I'm sorry.